Over Christmas 2010 I came to a decision that ‘Driven Rage’ was going on hold. I needed to get started on my next project. So I began writing my novel: ‘Inner World’. before beginning the long journey I needed a little inspiration, so I went searching for some books that may be able to provide me with some advice:

‘On Writing’ by Stephen King:I read this book directly after reading ‘Your Writing Coach’ by Jurgen Wolff and in contradiction to a couple of reviews on Amazon I benefited from reading both. In no way did I find the contents of both books provided the same advise.‘Your Writing Coach’ was more of a technical walk through the writing process and provided great advice. I will continue to use it for essential reference.

‘On Writing’ on the other hand was a snippet on the life of Stephen King by the man himself. However along the way he provides essential tips on how to and how not to write. The masters advice is sometimes quite forceful and occasionally I found myself disagreeing with a few don’ts. But at the end of the day when you consider how many books Stephen King has sold it makes you wonder.I suppose you just follow your own instincts and perhaps create your own style, which people will either want to read or not. The thing is Stephen King also covers the knock backs and the successes.

I also decided to take a closer look at the new features in ZBruh 4. The only book available at the time was ‘Introducing ZBrush 4’ by Eric Keller.After reading reviews on Amazon, which there were only two I was put off. Let’s just say the reviews weren’t very kind. I eventually decided to try the Kindle version on my ipad by using the Kindle App.I was pleasantly surprised with the Kindle App and the ease of purchasing and downloading from Amazon.

I’m not even half way through the book, which so far has covered most of the stuff I all ready picked up after using ZBrush 3. However, so far I am really impressed with this book. The writer has a really pleasant and intuitive style of explaining the many elements within ZBrush. I’m still reading the book, which says a lot, because normally if I’m not getting anything out of the book I would have put it away by now.

I had mixed feelings about the released upgrade to RapidWeaver 5. I was a little tentative as to whether I could open my project (this website), which was created in RapidWeaver 4.3.when you open your 4.3 saved version in 5 a message appears warning that after you safe your work it can’t be opened in a previous version. This was a worrying message, so as a precaution I went and copied all my previous work before publishing my website from version 5.

I finally plucked up the courage last night and hit the publish button. All was well and my website still functions fine.

The new RapidWeaver 5 app is available on the App store at a reasonable price, however I opted for the conventional upgrade from www.realmacsoftware.com. I’m just not sure how the App store deals with updates. I have a feeling the App store technology is much more clever than I take for granted.

My first impressions of RapidWeaver 5 were good. There is a change to the interface, which doesn’t take long to get used to and there are some subtle changes to colour and structure. I especially like the introduction of ‘Resources’ and ‘Stats’ on the left panel.